Winter is certainly here!

loganladyDecember 6, 2006

Last year it wasn't this cold so soon?? Seems like it waited before it got this cold. Oh well. My plants in the sunroom are hanging in...I cover them every night. I have found that the room stays about 10 degrees higher then outside temps. Now when it gets in the 20's..that means it'll be in the 30's inside. Yikes. I planted some beautiful impatients and really want them to stay alive...but time will tell. Some container plants outside look worn and tired from the huge gusty winds last week. I hope they can recover...

So on it goes...winter is here!!! What are you guys doing (or not) in your gardens?

I look outside sometimes, declare it FREEZING and go back to my seed catalogs/seed lists. It will soon be seed-ordering time. I got Ron Ratko's list yesterday and he has several offerings from the Carson Range here in Washoe County. I'll concentrate on those.

I thought Thanksgiving had cold winds, now it's gotten even colder. I finally get to wear the down jacket I bought on Ebay for cheap! As far as Nevada gardening, I ain't going out there! All container plants are close to the house. The Arabian Jasmine and orchids, though, are inside. My parents have a skylight so for the next two months, these frost tender plants will be getting filtered light in warm 70 degree room temperatures.

Thank God for seed catalogs in snail mail and online. All that I'm doing is planning their sping gardens. I will be planting container vegetables, mainly tomatoes, cukes, eggplant, and zucchini. My sister will be getting some trees and some heat tolerant plants planted near her guest house.

In my Southern CA garden, the tomatoes are still churning out fruit, though they are smaller and less sweet than in summer. I also have beets, carrots, cabbage, cauliflower, and various lettuces.

Hi Bill...my sunroom does have power to it. My husband put a window AC unit in it soon after it was installed. It faces east (we have a beautiful view of Mt. Charleston) and has windows all around the top of it. It gets hot in the summer time. In the wintertime I've noticed it stays about 10 degrees warmer then the outside temps. I bought plastic tarps and have kept them on my babies lately. They aren't complaining. I take them off to water and put them back on later. Right now it's 60 in there. I have a couple of hummingbird feeders outside the sunroom that keep freezing at night. Quite funny watching the hummers try and drink in the cold mornings. They just have to wait until their food thaws.
Yeah, it'll be interesting to see what lives and what doesn't this season.

Bill, my little throw-rug of a lawn IS still green(-ish): it's in the warmest, most sheltered part of the garden. As for ice, snow and other severe weather, that's just part of living in the Reno area in winter. Cold happens.

The local birds are using my little pond for drinking water since it has a pump to keep the water moving year-round (with one of those whiskey-barrel waterfall liner things and about a 3" drop so the water gets oxygenated). In spite of three cats, the birds visit and not only drink but gorge on the birdseed we put out, the berries remaining on assorted shrubs and vines, and on all the seedheads of perennial stuff out front. Two out of the three cats are simply too fat and too slow to do more than sit outside near the bird food pan with their mouths open and hope a bird flies in. The third cat still manages to catch any birds who are too unwary or too weak, but that isn't many of them--less than one a month. And he's terrified of the jays, the woodpeckers and even the mourning doves, so he doesn't have much to stalk.

Snow flurries in Pahrump this morning!!!! Snow covers all of our surrounding mountains too. Looks so pretty. Can't see Mt. Charleston yet but I know it'll be beautiful once the clouds move on...my dog is black and while I was outside looking at the snow flurries coming down-she was getting covered with snow. She couldn't figure out what it was (kept shaking it off)...I wish I had my camera then.
I am glad we did not get the winds with this storm but it IS very cold.